Homemade CinnaBuns- The easy way!

These cinnamon rolls have power behind them – real power. You could pretty much get anything you wanted if you showed up toting a plate of these babies, warm with icing oozing down the side. Regardless of their power, though, I want you to try to use them only for good. Rather than taking over the world (which I am waiting ’til I get both kids in school to do because I just don’t have the time needed to run it until I have at least another hour free each day), you can use them as wonderful gifts of gratitude and tokens of caring. I especially love that I can make these ahead of time and put them in the fridge to pop in the oven first thing in the morning – which makes your gifts of gratitude and tokens of caring all the more easier to provide!

I have been making these for years but only in the past few have I started using the shortcut method. While it’s fun to make the dough from scratch, its much more time consuming and not that easy on your hands (especially if you have arthritis ~raises hand~). Using store bought bread dough as opposed to making your own makes these super easy for anyone, regardless of experience in the kitchen, to turn out these supremely impressive cinnamon rolls.

If you have a loved one who is a devotee of the cinnamon rolls in the mall, expect them to become your number one fan the moment these come out of the oven.

In fact, my husband prefers them!

Of course, since I do have two ways of making these, I’m going to give you my easy way and then my homemade dough recipe at the bottom of the post just in case any of you want to try out that method as well. The tutorial will focus on the easy way, though. Life is complicated enough. 🙂

*Note: I’m using super cheap cinnamon. I paid all of .50 cents for it. You can pay a small fortune for a jar of cinnamon these days but I guess my tastes have never been refined enough to tell the difference.~grins~

Now, my confectioner’s sugar and brown sugar are in little sealed containers. I got tired of dealing with bags and such so I picked those up on my last trip to the grocery store. For those of you who know me and fear I may be ill – because this seems almost organized and that is soooooooooooo unlike me- rest assured this is a random act of organization and I don’t plan on making a habit of it. ~exhales in relief~ Yeah, that kinda scared me for a minute there, too!

This I promise… ~stands up and places a hand on her lapel in Abe Lincoln style~

I will always remain true to myself. You have my solemn vow that there will always be several piles of unfolded laundry, a pantry that looks like a tornado hit it most days, and empty coffee cups sitting near my computer along with various other assorted messes not just in one room, but throughout my entire house.

Don’t worry folks, I won’t let ya down!

Get out one loaf of bread dough and sit it on a plate at room temperature to thaw. This will probably take about an hour.

Just go check on it every now and then and poke it a bit to see if it is still frozen in the center. We need it completely thawed because we’re gonna take our rolling pin and put some elbow grease into flattening and stretching that puppy out!

In a small bowl, place brown sugar and cinnamon.

Mix those up.

I used one of Katy Rose’s “golden forks” for this. She was pretty proud of that.

Place your thawed bread on a floured surface.

I always roll out a bit of waxed paper to do this on for easy clean up.

I think more sentences in my life should include the words “Easy” and “clean up” together. Especially this time of year.

~sighs~

Now, putting some elbow grease into this, roll out your dough.

My original recipe called for it to be rolled out to about 16×21 but that was when I was making the dough from scratch. When I use a loaf of dough, I roll it out to about 9×16. It comes out just the same but you just don’t have as many spirals to your cinnamon rolls.

I hope I’m making sense here…been a pretty stressful morning :).

Take half of your stick of melted butter and spread it over your dough.

Sprinkle your brown sugar mixture over it and pat down lightly. I leave a little bit of edge on each side to help it seal when we roll it up.

Carefully begin rolling it all up into a log.

Like this. Press that together just a little bit.

Using a serrated knife (because that is what works best for me, but if you prefer some other type feel free!) cut one inch slices all down your log.

Place the slices in a greased 9×13 pan.

I am using metal but you can use glass if you prefer, whatever you have on hand.

You really can’t mess these up.

Cover with cling wrap and place in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, which could take anywhere from two to four hours, depending on the temperature.Sometimes it’s hard to find a warm place in your house in the winter time. In the summer, I go put them in the garage. In the winter, I dry a load of clothes and set them on top of the washing machine, near the dryer. ~grins~ At this point, you can also put them in the refrigerator and let them rise overnight. They will rise much more slowly in the fridge so get up about an hour before you want to bake them because you may need to sit them on the counter for about an hour to let them finish rising.

Looky there! Isn’t that beautiful? See how easy this is?

Hint: Don’t be going bragging about how easy it is to your family because if they don’t know, you’re pretty much a sure thing for a sainthood nomination when you make these. Remove cling wrap and bake at 400 for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Meanwhile, back at the Duke place, Boss Hog developed a wild hankerin’ for some cream cheese icing. Being bighearted, Daisy decided to make it for him. I watched way too much Dukes of Hazzard as a child…

Apparently, Ricky did too because when he saw the General Lee at a mall in Nashville this past weekend he about had a dying duck fit wanting me to take his picture by it. Where was I? Oh ..yeah…Boss Hog wanted some cream cheese icing..

Place 1/2 brick cream cheese (recipe calls for 3 ounces, half of an eight ounce brick works for me!) and the other half of the stick of margarine in a mixing bowl.

Now I don’t put icing on mine in the pan, I serve them and let people put their own icing on. I eat mine without any icing (I know, that is awful! But I can’t have the sugar and I still very much enjoy the cinnamon roll!) and my husband would pretty much put the entire bowl of icing on his if I let him…

Ooooh Lawdy, isn’t that gorgeous? These heat up well, too. I made them last night for dessert and we heated some for breakfast this morning. Delicious!

3 Tablespoon ground cinnamon (Filling)

3 ounce cream cheese, softened (Icing)

¼ Cup butter or margarine, softened (Icing)

1-1/2 Cups confectioner's sugar (Icing)

½ tsp vanilla (optional, I usually just leave it out) (Icing)

Instructions

Place loaf of dough on plate and let sit at room temperature until thawed. Once thawed, roll out onto floured surface to a size of about nine inches by sixteen inches. Spread ¼ C margarine over dough.

In small bowl mix together brown sugar and 3 T cinnamon. Sprinkle over top of cinnamon roll, stopping about ½ an inch away from the sides so it will seal (see photos). Carefully roll up cinnamon roll into a log and press lightly to seal. Slice into one inch slices with serrated knife. Place in greased 9x13 inch pan and cover with cling wrap. Place in warm spot and allow to rise until doubled in size. Remove cling wrap and bake at 400 for about 15 minutes, or until done.

Icing: Mix all ingredients together and beat with electric mixer until creamy. Spread over cinnamon rolls.

3.5.3251

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From Scratch Dough

*This dough replaces the frozen loaf of bread dough. Use the rest of the recipe as written above.

1 Cup Lukewarm Milk

2 Large eggs, at room temp

1/3 C unsalted butter or margarine, cut up

4 3/4 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 3/4 tsp Salt

1/2 C Sugar

2 1/2 tsp instant or bread machine yeast

Place all of the dough ingredients into the pan of your bread machine in the order listed. Program the machine for dough or manual and press start. After about ten minutes, check the doughs consistency. It should be smooth, not too sticky and not too dry. Adjust it’s consistency with additional flour or water if necessary to allow the machine to complete the kneading.

*If not using a bread machine, combine all of the dough ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir until mixture becomes cohesive. Transfer to lightly oiled work surface and knead by hand for five to eight minutes or until it is smooth. The way I think of smooth is…~looks around to make sure no one is listening~ it needs to be like a baby’s bottom.

Place kneaded dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turn to grease all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place for one hour, until it is nearly doubled. Transfer to floured work surface and roll into a 16×21 inch rectangle. Spread with 1/2 stick margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mixture. Complete using recipe above.

Comments

Oh Yummy! This is by far better than those canned one’s I tend to get because I’m so lazy when it comes to cinnamon rolls. I am definitely gonna try this one out my family will be amazed at how hard I worked on them! LOL! Thanks Christy for another great recipe! 🙂

I have made these rolls twice and they were a hit each time. I made an adjustment to the recipe that made it better for me. I used 1/2 brown sugar and 1/2 white it was much sweeter and didn’t cook down so hard. I had to lower the temp on my stove 275 for 10-12 minutes. They are very addicting. yummmy thanks for sharing that recipe with us.

Looks great, Christy! Will try these when my family is in town for Thanksgiving next week. Hint: if you can’t find a warm place free of drafts, you can put the dough in the oven to rise (just make sure the oven is turned off!) Also, buying spices in the “Mexican” food section of your grocery store will save lots of money. They’re much cheaper there. For those whose grocery stores don’t have the Mexican section…well, sorry.

Kathy, you need to exercise caution when buying Mexican vanilla. Here is a FDA link discussing how it can be adulterated with coumarin by disreputable dealers. That bargain price may not be such a bargain after all. I used to buy Mexican vanilla also but in light of this warning, figure it isn’t worth taking the risk. I first learned of this problem when it was mentioned by Alton Brown.

These look so incredibly good! I am going to try them out when the college kids are home for Thanksgiving. If I make them now I will have to buy all new pants as I will surely eat them all by myself! 🙂 thanks for the post!

Love the recipe!! Sorry I don’t do facebook, hon, I know you youngins all do, so I sure hope you don’t give up your blog. Loved your cookbook and hope you will do another. While I’m here…I used to have a recipe for Plantation Gingerbread from the 1800s and lost it…have you got a granny who made great gingerbread??? I will be indebted to whoever has a really old gingerbread recipe…hugs from Canada

Janie I have my Great Grandmothers cookbook her and it has several gingerbread recipies in it. The bok was given to grandma in 1891 so they are the good old fashioned recipes. E-mal me at karanmi@yahoocom and I can send your what I have here.

I love cinnamon rolls! I also like making orange sweet rolls. Loved your tip about putting them on a warm clothes dryer to rise. I would never have thought of that! I’m going to use that tip from now on. I think maybe my husband’s office wouldn’t mind some tomorrow! Thanks. I really enjoy your recipes! C. Vins

WOW! That looks sooo good! 🙂 And YES, making cinnamon roll dough, while yummy, is sooo time consuming that I only make it twice a year for Easter and Christmas. I hope to make it more now…yeah! 😀 Now…wonder if my commy has that???? I’ll have to check tomorrow.

Wow! Who knew it could be this easy! Thank you, Christy. This is another home run. Thank you also for providing the scratch dough recipe. Think I will double it and put the remaining half in the freezer for my next batch of your wonderful rolls. I can smell the cinamonny (yeah, I know there’s isn’t such a word but…)fragrance wafting from my oven already. Sheer heaven.

Do you know how awesome you are??!! All weekend I looked for a good recipe for HOMEMADE cinnamon rolls, tried one out that wasn’t all that great, and here you are with just what I need! These look yummy! I will be trying this recipe out in the next couple of days. THANKS for all you do!!!

This is perfect! I am wanting to do some type of cinnamon bread for Christmas gifts and have been looking for a recipe for a braided wreath, but I think this will be even better. Could you put them in a 9″ round cake pan?

I love cinnamon rolls but do not make them that often. It is troubling to me to spend so much time making them to have the finish product only last about 10 minutes in my house!! Maybe now I won’t mind when they disappear so quickly. Thank you so much for this quick and easy method. 🙂

Hint from someone without a good serated knife for cutting: Use dental floss to cut the roll into slices. Place the dental floss under the roll, bring it around to the top, criss-cross ends and pull until you get a nice clean cut. Works like a charm for me, but I wouldn’t recommend using flavored floss!

Great Scott, Missy. That is an awesome tip and I, for one, surely appreciate your input. Can’t wait to make these for my honey pie hubby, a cinnabon fanatic for sure. Thanks Christy for another exciting and simple recipe. mmmm, I can smell it already.

These look yummy! Do you think you can let them rise the whole way and then refrigerate overnight to bake the next morning? I’m thinking Christmas morning.

Also, if ya’ll ever go to a “Cooter’s Place” … they have all kinds of Duke memoriabilia. (Just watch out for the posters of Daisy — grins) There are several locations. I’ve been to the one in Gatlinburg, TN. The stores were started by (and I guess still owned by) the guy that played Cooter (Ben Jones???). Sometimes, they have original cast members on hand to sign autographs. They also had a General Lee outside that you could have your picture made in. (small fee).

I am one of the customers that would order the big sticky decadent Cinnabon and order extra icing on the side! Of course that was in much younger years when I could eat what I wanted and not worry…sigh. These look uber yummy. I can’t wait to try them out on the kiddos…can I send them to your house when they are pinging off the walls? 😉

Oh my goodness I can nearly smell those baking. My mom used to make cinnamon rolls often and became well known in our little town for her treats. I especially associate them with Easter morning at our church’s sunrise service. I was just thinking too, and I have never tried it, but maybe you could use that other half block of cream cheese on the dough before you rolled it up as I seem to recall that my mom stread her dough with butter which helped the cinnamon sugar stick while rolling the dough up.